Peace, Love & Misunderstanding

Three talented actresses (Jane Fonda, Catherine Keener and Elizabeth Olsen) provided the drive for this over-simplistic view of intergenerational differences and the search for happiness. While clichés abound, the plots twists can be seen miles away but yet occur in the blink-of-an-eye without any rationalization, and the characters border on being one- dimensional, this movie is a guilty pleasure. I would probably credit the ability to overcome this movie's weaknesses to the acting skills and the on-screen charisma of Ms. Fonda and Ms. Keener.

The male characters are even more one-dimensional than the female leads. The only person to get less to do than the abandoning husband (Kyle MacLachlan) is the talented Patricia Arquette who may have only 1 or 2 lines in the movie which require a double take to confirm her presence. I suspect that post-production was not kind to whatever other dialog must have been originally written for her.

While the movie has many weaknesses, the stellar soundtrack and magnificent cinematography are not among them.

Clocking in at barely over 90 minutes, I would recommend this movie to those who do not mind a little fluff every now and then.

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If you lack motivation or simply are looking for relaxation, you'll like Peace, Love & Misunderstanding. There is nothing groundbreaking in it, nevertheless, the cast delivers an excellent performance. It goes to the extent that even the actors that might annoy you don't bother you throughout the movie.

There is a lot of stereotyping here, but i didn't expect anything else from a romantic comedy involving hippies in Woodstock in the year 2011. Jane Fonda looks like a grandma every teenager would love to have, adorable despite all the escapades. She was the only reason i saw Peace, Love & Misunderstanding and i liked the way Barbarella had aged...

Kudos to Bruce Beresford for making a really great film with heart and soul. All the cast are amazing - especially Jane Fonda as the grandmother, she really pops in this one. Chase Crawford is hot and homegrown, as is the Javier Bardem - look a like - Jeffrey Dean Morgan. We'd like to see more of him. Catherine Keener is believable as the uptight attorney. I felt a little cheated that Patricia Arquette was not in more scenes, one can only surmise she hit the cutting room floor. Loved seeing the Woodstock locals and the location used as characters. I was in the story for the complete ride. Timeless story. A must see. Why is it only in one theater here in New York?

It does seem a shame to cast three generations of compelling actresses as a dysfunctional family and then let them drown in a sea of tired character clichés and pop psychology babble. But that's exactly what happens in director Bruce Beresford's 2012 dramedy, a touchy-feely, throwaway vehicle for Jane Fonda, Catherine Keener, and Elizabeth Olsen ("Martha Marcy May Marlene"), who all try hard to rise above the broad brushstrokes that mark the superficial script by first-time screenwriters Joseph Muszynski and Christina Mengert. There isn't a single surprise that would make anyone reconsider the trite nature of the cross-generational conflict on display here, and Beresford doesn't help matters by the film's odd pacing where the basic set-up is handled in the first three minutes and then has characters go through character transformations in the most formulaic manner.

The story begins as Diane, an uptight Manhattan lawyer, is suddenly informed by her husband that he wants a divorce. Instead of discussing the matter, she packs up her two teenaged children – self-righteous vegan daughter Zoe and aspiring filmmaker son Jake – and visits her mother Grace up in Woodstock even though they haven't spoken in twenty years. Of course, Grace is Diane's exact opposite, a free spirit hippie artist, a political rabble-rouser and a successful pot dealer, so naturally conflict ensues immediately. While the perennially glum Diane glares judgmentally at Grace, both Diane and Zoe, of course, find love with local men who are their polar opposites - Diane with a laid-back carpenter and singer named Jude, Zoe with a sensitive butcher named Cole. In the meantime, Jake annoyingly videotapes life in Woodstock while crushing on a girl who works in a local coffee shop.

All the while, grandma Grace espouses spiritual bromides to everyone about how they need to live their lives to the fullest. It's a pleasure to see the 74-year-old Fonda look fit and loose-limbed as Grace even though I was getting the nagging sense she should be doing a lot more than play this dotty caricature. Playing against type, Keener seems particularly one-note as the mostly dour Diane, and some of her natural looseness as an actress would have helped bring more dimension to the role. Current indie "it girl" Olsen shows welcome moments of vulnerability that are severely blunted by Zoe's generally insufferable nature. Jeffrey Dean Morgan ("P.S. I Love You") appears to be specializing in rebound love interests, and he plays the emotionally accessible Jude with easy charm. Chace Crawford ("Gossip Girl") seems to be playing a younger version of the same male stereotype as Cole inexplicably entranced by Zoe.

Nat Wolff ("The Naked Brothers Band") provides mostly comic relief as hopelessly naïve Jake. I'm not sure why Rosanna Arquette is in the film since she's given next to nothing to do. The cinematography by Andre Fleuren nicely captures the bucolic landscape of upstate New York, but I found the original music by Spencer David Hutchings more intrusive than evocative. For his part, Beresford looks to be resuscitating key moments from Fonda's own film of parental alienation, "On Golden Pond", but a better story model would have been Lisa Cholodenko's "The Kids Are All Right" which lent layers of emotional complexity to a family unit challenged by a lack of forgiveness. After all, outside of this formulaic film, life just isn't as groovy as Grace would have you believe.

Six things about Peace, Love & Misunderstanding:

1. Yes, Jeffrey Dean Morgan really does look like Javier Bardem. So much so that I turned to my wife at one point and said: "I didn't realize that Bardem could speak English so flawlessly; too bad the strain of keeping that American accent has stunted his acting ability".

2. Great to see Rosanna Arquette, albeit in a bit part.

3. Woodstock looks like a really beautiful place.

4. The kids in this movie really can act, especially Elizabeth Olsen. Best Supporting Actress nominee: you heard it here first.

5. I grew up in the late 60's and early 70's and, despite some quibbles about the way in which the leftover hippies in this movie are portrayed, I was impressed by the ability of the young writers to steer away from some of the more obvious stereotypes (not completely, mind you - I don't think there is really a Kesey-esque psychedelic school bus anymore outside the props departments of the Hollywood studios). Perhaps they got the tone right because of the input from one of the era's cultural icons.

6. Thereby bringing us to Jane Fonda who, unfortunately, was ill and couldn't attend the world premiere last night in Toronto. She is just great in this film, in a role that could easily have fallen into parody (even self-parody). Sure, an ex-hippie in her 70's probably wouldn't be as heavily made up, but this is a Hollywood movie and she is a movie star. She is at once charming, spacey, provocative and slightly raunchy.

All in all, a really nicely written and lovingly directed and acted film. I hope it does well.